


Paint covered Scars

by SoftfortheScronch



Series: Small Moments [13]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra uses art as a coping mechanism, F/F, Pls ignore the absence of melog, Theyre just vibing somewhere, im soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:21:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25711294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoftfortheScronch/pseuds/SoftfortheScronch
Summary: Adora has an idea to help Catra heal
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Series: Small Moments [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819234
Comments: 4
Kudos: 95





	Paint covered Scars

Adora was exhausted. 

She and Catra had spent the entire day out gathering information for her latest map and now that they were home all she wanted was to crawl into bed and bury her face into Catras neck and never take it back out. 

Adora yawned and stretched as Catra got undressed, stripping down to a pair of boxer shorts before crawling under the covers of their bed. Her head pops out the top and Adora laughs, Catra grinning and sticking her tongue out at her. She pulls her own shirt off and sits on the bed with her back to Catra, bare skin tingling slightly in the cool room. She pulls off her pants, sighing happily as she tosses them aside, exchanging them for a pair of sleep shorts.

She pulls her hair down, scratching her nails across her scalp to relieve the stiffness that came with having her hair up all day before she flops back on the bed, rolling to face Catra. She’s surprised to find Catra with her back to her, curled in on herself. She was silent, but Adora could tell by her unsteady breathing that something was wrong. 

“Catra?” She asks worriedly, sitting back up and placing a hand on Catras shoulder. 

Catra shies away slightly “I’m fine,” 

“I know you well enough to know thats not true,” Adora says “Talk to me," 

Adoras voice is patient and soft, her thumb rubbing across Catras shoulder soothingly. Catra stays silent for a moment, then sighs and rolls to face Adora, sitting up and folding her legs below her. She looks down at her lap, fiddling with her fingers. 

Adora takes her hands, rubbing her thumbs over them.

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” 

Adora frowns and opens her mouth to speak, but Catra cuts her off. 

“I’ve hurt you so much, caused you so much pain, but you still stick by me, you never gave up on me, even after everything I did to you, to your friends,” Catras voice breaks and a tear slides down her face. She pulls her hands from Adoras and wraps her arms around herself protectively, looking so vulnerable Adora just wanted to pull her into her arms and never let her go. 

“Those scars on your back, I caused them with my own two hands,” 

She had put those scars there, her own claws had dug into the flesh of Adoras back, cutting though her shirt and permanently leaving marks on her body, while Adora was holding her close, trying to protect her, still not giving up on her. The scars themselves weren't the issue really, she had given Adora plenty of scars growing up, hell Adora even had a faint scar from when Catra had jealously clawed her across the face as children, but this one held more meaning in the pale white lines. It held all the hurt she had caused, all the people who had lost their lives and homes, all she had put Adora and her (now also Catras) friends through. The way she had treated Entrapta, Lonnie, Kyle, Rogelio and worst of all Scorpia, the bright optimistic woman who had tried so hard to make her happy, keep her safe and be her friend. It reminded her of the worse time in her life, where she pushed everyone away, almost destroyed the universe for revenge and became so self destructive and reckless, hurting so much, she didn't even care if she lived or died. The scar reminded her of her absolute rock bottom. 

Adora looked over her shoulder into the mirror behind her, seeing the five linear marks on her pale skin,, the scars caused by Catras claws when she had been under Horde Primes influence, chipped and utterly helpless to stop herself. 

“Oh Catra…” Adora says softly, looking back to her girlfriend who had tears rolling down her face. She rises to her knees and moves over to sit next to her, pulling her into her arms, a hand in her hair as Catras forehead came to rest on her shoulder. “ You know I don’t blame you for any of that, right?" 

“But its my fault, everything that happened was my fault,” Catra says "I don't know how you can defend me for any of it," 

“It's nobodies fault but the Hordes, they’re the ones who fucked us up, told us lies and manipulated us growing up, they're the ones who enabled us BOTH to hurt people, to hurt each other the way we did," 

Adora shifts the feline into her lap, Catra wrapping her arms around Adoras waist and placing her head back onto her shoulder, nose against her collarbone, sniffling gently. 

“Do you really believe that?” She asks 

“Of course I do, you did some really bad things, we both have, but that isn’t you anymore, you’ve changed and made things right with those you've hurt. Now you have to work on forgiving yourself,” 

“How?” Catra asks, her voice sounding so small. 

“By controlling what you can,” Adora says, rubbing a thumb thought the dense fur behind Catras ear. 

Adoras eyes catch on something across the room and she smiles, nudging Catra gently. “I have an idea,” 

“What?” Catra says, lifting her head up and looking at Adora. She looked so vulnerable, ears flat in her short hair, her usually bright eyes seeming dull, her expression utterly defeated. Adora kisses her sweetly, feeling Catras soft smile against her lips. 

“You’ll see,” 

She places Catra back on the bed and stands up, crossing the room and picking up a box on the dresser. Grabbing an old blanket, she returns to Catra, placing the box down and spreading the blanket out across their bed. She sits back down and put the box in front of Catra, sliding it across the bed towards her. 

Catra frowns and opens the box, getting even more confused when she sees exactly what she expected to see, Adoras paints, the ones she used for her maps. She looks back up to Adora. 

“You put these marks on my body, and they hold so many bad memories. Why don’t you make them into something you’re proud of instead of something that makes you feel like this?” 

“You mean paint your scars?” 

Adora grins “As I said, control what you can,” 

“Okay,” Catra says with a small smile, actually really liking the idea. Maybe creating new memories here with Adora would mask some of the old ugly ones, replace them, at least a little, and take some of their power away. 

Adora lays down on the bed on her stomach, folding her arms under her head. Catra hesitates for a moment before pushing the paints over next to Adora. She crawls over, swinging a leg over Adora, sitting down straddling her thighs just below her butt.

“Take your time,” Adora says “Have fun with it,” 

Catra can see one of Adoras eyes, so full of love and trust, looking at up at her and she feels like the luckiest girl on all of Etheria. Catra carefully brushes Adoras hair aside to avoid getting paint in it and Adoras eyes flutter shut at the gentle touch. She lets out a contented breath, her body melting into the bed, all her muscles relaxing below Catra. Catra presses a nail to Adoras skin, gently running it down the length of one of the scars, then pressed the pad of her finger against it. Adoras skin was soft and warm under her fingers. The bare expanse of her back was enthralling in a way Catra couldn’t quite describe and she thought if Adoras back was the only thing she looked at for the remainder of her life, she would die happy. 

Catra leans down and presses a kiss to the space between Adoras shoulder blades, her bare breasts pressing against the soft skin of her back. Adoras eye pops open as she giggles, a light blush on her cheeks. Catra shoots her a toothy grin beige turning her attention to the paints, opening the box again. 

She picks out a Cerulean colour that catches her eye and she opens the jar, nestling it back into place before dipping a finger into it. She doesn’t know when she decided to use her fingers, but it somehow felt appropriate. 

Adora starts slightly when she feels Catras paint covered finger come into contact with her skin 

“Sorry, should have warned you, its cold,” Catra says sheepishly, her ears tucking themselves back a little. 

“Its fine,” Adora says “Just try not to get too much of that in your fur, it stains,” 

Catra nods, gliding her finger around on Adoras back, not really sure what she was doing, but just going with it, connecting lines and dotting the blue around until she felt satisfied. She pulls a rag from the paint box and wipes the blue off her fingers as best she could, she wasnt very successful though, Adora was right this stuff stains. She put the lid back on the colour before moving onto the next. She went for a burnt orange that she dots over the blue carefully, using the very tip of her nail to achieve tiny little pinpricks of colour. Next she picks up a golden yellow that reminded her of the light that she ra emanated and began to draw barely there semi circles around the dots. 

“You still awake?” Catra asks as she uncaps a dusty purple, her hands covered in paint 

“Yeah,” Adora says, her voice relaxed and sleepy. Her eyes blink open and she looks at Catra fondly. 

Catra giggles “Hope I’m not tickling you or scratching you at all, I have been using my nails for smaller lines and stuff,”

“No,” Adora says “Feels nice, I love when people play with my back,”

“I remember,” Catra says fondly “I used to when we were kids,” 

Adora smiles, her eyes fluttering back shut once again “Yeah, you were always good at it,” 

Catra dips her finger into the purple and stirs it for a moment before dabbing it onto Adoras skin and doing her best to blend it with the blue a little.

She sits back and looks at her work with the open paint jar in her hand.. It was missing something. She ponders for a moment then grins, shoving the purple back into the box and pulls out a silvery black. She quickly draws in what was missing and grins, sitting back once again, admiring her work. 

She could still clearly see the scars through the layer of paint, but now they were different, they seemed less angry now. The accusations and blame that they screamed at her had been silenced, at least for the time being. 

She closes the paint jars that remained open and shut the box. 

Adora opens her eyes again lazily “Y’done?” 

“All done,” Catra says, holding her hands up, palms towards her body, fingers curled as she crawled off Adora, careful not to touch anything with her paint covered hands. She scoots to the edge of the bed and stands, offering her arm to Adora to help her up.

"Wow, what a gentleman," Adora grins 

Catra barks out a laugh "That's me, your chivalrous gentleman," 

Adora giggles, bumping Catra with her hip "Shush you," 

Catra grins and sticks her tongue out at her, making Adora roll her eyes fondly.

Adora walks over to the mirror and holds her hair as she turns, not wanting it to fall into the fresh paint on her back. 

She gasps when she sees what Catra had done. Catra crosses her arms, feeling vulnerable, and gets paint all in the fur on her arms and the sides of her chest. Shes too caught up in Adoras reaction to pay much mind to that at the moment though. 

Adora studied the explosion of colour on her back, in awe at what Catra had created over her scars. The colours almost seemed to be bursting out from her scars, the five lines the focal point of the piece. Catra had painted space, complete with stars and streaks of colors to represent nebulas. She had even painted a very tiny little Darla sitting on the top of one of the scars, so small that Adors doubted she would have been able to do it without her nails.

Adora turns back to Catra and pulls her into a hug. Catras eyes widen at the suddenness, a loud ‘Mrrp!’ leaving her as she’s pulled to Adoras chest. She wraps her arms around Adora under the wet paint and giggles. 

“I take it you like it?” 

“I love it,” Adora responds 

“Hopefully it won’t wash off too quick,” Catra says 

“If it does, you can just paint something new,” Adora says 

Catra smiles shyly, her expression softening as she slowly blinks at Adora. Adora melts a little, knowing that it was one of the many ways Catra subconscious showed her emotions, like the way her ears flattened when she was scared or how her tail swished rapidly when she was agitated, how she purred when she was happy, or chirped when she was startled. 

The slow blink was Adoras favourite. It was a show of trust and love, and during the three years they had been separated Adora had missed it greatly. 

“I love you,” Adora says “So much,” 

“I love you too,” Catra says 

Adora pulls her back into a hug, burying her face in Catras shoulder with a sniffle, laughing lightly. 

“Are you crying?” Catra asks 

“Maybe,” Adora says, laughing at herself some more. 

Catra squeezes her tightly, a hand clutching the back of her head

“You’re such an idiot,” She chuckles 

“I know,” Adora says, sniffling “But I’m your idiot,” 

“Yeah..” Catra says with a broad smile. 

Adora pulls back and wipes her nose with the back of her hand, looking over her shoulder into the mirror again. Her hair falls across her back and she curses, pulling it out of the way and examining the now multicoloured ends. Catra snickers at her, making her pout slightly. Then she laughs, a small snort leaving her 

“I just realized something,” She says

“What?” Catra asks 

“How am I supposed to sleep with this on my back without ruining it along with everything else it touches,” 

Catras face goes blank “Oh.” 

Adora cracks a smile, forcing one out of Catra as well and they both start laughing. 

Maybe they were both idiots.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, it would mean a lot if you left comment or kudos to let me know! I also love to hear constructive criticism! Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good day!


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